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Show By Thomas Collins A BUDGET FOR AGE 65 HERE IS A SAMPLE YOU don't lik budgets. And Uncle Felix doesn't like budgets. budg-ets. Nobody does. But you will make a smart move toward a good retirement if you will sit down a yea.' ir. advance ad-vance of age 65 and chart the Income In-come and expenses you expect to have when ycU retire. Too many people ride up to retirement re-tirement on their good salaries and then-try to adjust their way of living. It seldom works out that way. A man and woman must train for the economic limitations lim-itations of a retirement income as a baseball player must train to hit. And about the best way to do it is to set up and live by a budget at least a year before retirement re-tirement comes. Here is a budget. It doesn't fit your needs or anybody else'sbe-cause else'sbe-cause nobody's budget fits anybody any-body else. But it is a budget which a happily retired man who is accustomed to the good things of life has found good. It is based on the prices in Washington, D. C, which would be fairly typical typi-cal of most metropolitan areas in the United States. The budget figures fig-ures are yearly figures. Groceries $825.02. Household materials, furniture, rugs, dishes, sheets, pillow cases, curtains and so forth $147.88. Apparel and dry cleaning $207.47. Doctors, dentists and medicines $478.39. Personal care: haircuts, per-manents, per-manents, facial creams, toothpaste, tooth-paste, shaving materials and so forth $109.51. Sua fart $51.35. Magazine and newspapers $66.90. Laundry and supplies, washers and dryers $60.25. Utilities $117.23. Miscellaneous $92.86. Rent 4912.00. Total $3,068.84 (This If a monthly month-ly average of $255.75.) As you study what this 70-year-old couple is spending, you are likely to find many things omitted which you consider necessities. That's the way budgets are. That's why you should never be too concerned with any standard retirement budget anybody gives you. This couple has a pretty good budget for a $255 a month income. Their living quarters, which figure fig-ure out to be $76 a month, wouldn't be in a glass-front apartment apart-ment on a good street, and wouldn't be very large either. But they might be adequate for a retired couple. The food budget budg-et of $70 or so a month seems ' normal but you wouldn't like it because you like steak. The saddest sad-dest item in the budget is the $478 for medical care. This is almost al-most one-sixth of the total income, in-come, more than half of what is spent for food and too much. I would add to any retirement budget about $60 a year for gifts to grandchildren. At the rate of $5 a month, Grandma and Grandpa Grand-pa could mail gifts to their grandchildren grand-children and be gray-haired saints in shining armor. For a copy of the new Golden Tears booklet bj Thomas Collins, send 39 cents In coin no stamps) to (name of newspaper). Box 1672, Grand Central ItaUea, New lork 17. isw -- I |